TV guilty pleasures

[sir podger]

What shit shows or type of tv do you enjoy? I've always been addicted to human challenge shows.

 

I love the original japanese ninja warrior, one of the best things about it was as a foreign language show being dubbed there was no time for annoying hosts to waffle rubbish. just athletes doing amazing feats of agility and strength.

 

I just watched all 10 episodes of The Titan Games on netflix back to back. The Rock was a really good presenter, just praising these people and making the show about them.

 

Stone Cold Steve Austin's Broken Skull Ranch was a fantastic example too, head to head badassery followed by a spirit breaking personal challenge.

 

I want to slowly kill, by flaying then rolling in salt and vingar, all the commentaters of Ultimate Beastmaster. the contestants were all good, the challenges were interesting, but whoever had the idea of 8 pairs of presenters, each providing the commenatry for their home country all next to each other trying to out-wacky each other. the producers should also be shot, you build a massive impressive set, fly people in from all over the world, then decide to focus on 8 different countries equivalents of Stephen Mulhern and Davina McCall.

 

notable mention for the Sky one remake of Gladiators for reviving a franchise to kill it with blandness. The original show had characters for contestants, the remake was a production line of bland - we have Tony, a personal trainer from Wigan and he's competing against David, a personal trainer from Peterborough, next up we will have Jane a personal trainer from Stevenage taking on Sue, a personal trainer from Devon

 

[Commander Jameson]

All those shows that help people move to different parts of the country or another country altogether; A Place in the Sun, etc. Even though the majority seen to be excuses for a good holiday at Channel 4's expense.

 

Home improvement shows are good too. Especially the one with the two architects showing their designs in VR. It's actually very informative as the architects explain their thinking.

 

And EastEnders.

[Fuddle]

I love Murder she wrote.

some free view channels quite often have multiple episodes back to back, and I can quite happily leave it on all day. The theme tune is of course fucking awesome.

 

(I do the same with Columbo, but that isn’t shit)

[Silent Runner]

Anything related to tattoos; LA ink, Miami ink, Just Tattoo of Us, Tattoo Fixers etc. Can’t get enough. 

[Death's Head]

Any cookery show is my poison. And gameshows. I've ended up weirdly addicted to repeats of Ramsey's US Kitchen nightmares late at night.

 

Oh and the king of timewasting telly, Come Dine With Me or it's B&B cousin, Four in a Bed.

[neoELITE]

It has to be Storage Wars. It's obviously fake and they obviously plant items in those lockers but I end up binge watching them on a Sunday.

[Jammy]

Forged In Fire !

[Art Vandelay]

Massive fan of any format that has been sold to Australia. Masterchef is clearly the king and about a million times better than the UK one. It seems to be on every single day of the week for 2 hours so it's impossible to keep up with, and the rules and challenges are over complicated to the point where I'm not sure anyone knows what's going on. I think the short arse host is now a national pariah and the other two flounced off with him so no idea what the latest series is like though. Their ridiculousness is 90% of the fun.

 

Seven Year Switch is just a load of old bollocks, but again our antipodean chums have made an amazing version that goes on for months. Every person in it is given a very Australian personality trait they apparently need to work on. Like they'll keep referring to one of the lads as a 'larrikin', and then you look that up and agree, yes this bloke is a larrikin. This is trash with a capital T and all the other letters too for that matter. 

 

And finally, Homes Under the Hammer is a serious vibe. A weirdly addictive format and whoever picks the music knows what they're doing as it's frequently hilarious. Also gifted us with home improvement property wheeler dealer Dion Dublin. 

 

 

[Monkeyboy]

I’m loving SAS: Who Dares Wins at the minute, watching it on catch up.

[christaylor]

Forces TV were showing all episodes of Buck Rogers a few months ago so I recorded them all and have been dipping into them every now and again. They used to be essential family viewing back in the mid-80s but watching them back now they are almost universally terrible, the storylines, the acting, the sets, hilariously bad, I think I'm mainly just carrying on watching becasue of Wilma's jumpsuit.

 

Also like to watch the old British 70s shows they always have on during the day on ITV4, mainly Minder, The Sweeny and the Professionals, mainly to just look at how... grimy the 70s were. The haircuts, the clothes, the cars, it's all fascinatingly awful.

[Hawklord]

A Place in the Sun. We watch at least 2 eps of this every weekend to start off the Saturday night TV binge. We've even been known to spend the whole Saturday night watching re-runs

[Gabe]

I wouldn't say it's necessarily trash, but I love Abandoned Engineering on Yesterday. Whilst a lot of the sites they visit are WW2 related (which are interesting, don't get me wrong, but I like a bit more variety), they show some really strange/bizarre/downright creepy places and I can't get enough. They have some wonderful camera shots too, so you can appreciate the glory of various ruins.

 

There's a similar themed-show on Discovery called 'Massive Engineering Mistakes'. I've only watched 1 episode so far, but it's very American and so instantly isn't as good. I'll probably watch them though.

 

I did used to quite enjoy Michael Portillo's 'Great British Train Journeys' (or whatever it was called). Pretty niche.

[Vimster]

13 hours ago, Fuddle said:

I love Murder she wrote.

some free view channels quite often have multiple episodes back to back, and I can quite happily leave it on all day. The theme tune is of course fucking awesome.

 

When my ex would come over we'd sit and watch Murder She Wrote whilst eating our dinner. What annoyed me though was it was one of those shows where they stretched the 4:3 out to 16:9. Bloody annoying. 

[Vimster]

There was a time I was really into Antiques Road Trip. Like all these sorts of shows you could see right through all the fake spontaneity and forced chemistry but like anything with an auction at the end it just had that pull. 

[Stopharage]

Come Dine With Me and Four in a Room are cat nip for idle minds; happily wallow in an episode of those when I'm vegging out. 

 

Fly on the wall documentaries are great too; the Best Western documentary on Channel 4 at the moment is ideal. 

 

On the rare occasion I've endured Question Time I've felt dirty and needed a shower and felt pretty guilty. 

[Art Vandelay]

Huge fan of anything set on a disgusting fishing boat trawling around the frigid expanses of the Atlantic Ocean. Wicked Tuna is probably the best as the competition aspect is pretty good, but they're all the same stock selection of colourful characters such as the feckless rookie and people who aren't allowed back on land.

[PK]

Forged in Fire is amazing crap telly. Blacksmiths make weapons in a competition, shot and edited like a Fast & Furious film.

 

 

 

[Azrael]

Prison Break (All seasons) and The O.C are two of my most favourite shows ever. Don't care how trashy, stupid or cheesy they are. 

[Captain Kelsten]

I don't really have any, but whilst my wife was on mat leave last year she got really into both love island and real housewives of wherever. At first it was Beverly Hills, but she's since watched OC, Atlanta, New York, Australia and god knows what else 

 

My wife, the university senior lecturer working on her doctorate. 

 

 

 

[Gabe]

I don't get your point, @Doctor Shark, are you suggesting she's too intelligent or something to watch them?

[Jammy]

1 hour ago, Doctor Shark said:

I don't really have any, but whilst my wife was on mat leave last year she got really into both love island and real housewives of wherever. At first it was Beverly Hills, but she's since watched OC, Atlanta, New York, Australia and god knows what else 

 

My wife, the university senior lecturer working on her doctorate. 

 

 

 

Nah, I totally get it. My wife is similar with her books; she works 12-15 hour days which are pretty intense, and happily admits she reads trashy crime novels because she’s done enough thinking at work.

[Mawdlin]

4 hours ago, Vimster said:

There was a time I was really into Antiques Road Trip. Like all these sorts of shows you could see right through all the fake spontaneity and forced chemistry but like anything with an auction at the end it just had that pull. 

I bloody love this programme and a couple of off-shoots: Make me a Dealer and Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

 

Admittedly I've had days where I've easily watched 5 or 6 Antiques Roadtrips in a row. They've made about 400 and I believe I've seen them all now, not to mention the Celeb version. I see Anita Manning out and about from time to time.

[Gambit]

Come Dine With Me.

 

I remember being off work sick for a few months so found myself pretty much every day watching a couple of episodes on Channel 4. The episode highlight being where one particular contestant thought she beat the system by giving everyone ridiculously unfair scores (2/10). The producers though told her to stop being such a twat and vote properly (I'm assuming this happened off camera because she changed all her scores at the end).

[Mawdlin]

Money for Nothing is hard to switch over from once invested. Dave Gorman references it a lot. I do wonder who would buy a re-upholstered wingback chair for £600 because it has a picture of a punk on it though.

[Captain Kelsten]

1 hour ago, Gabe said:

I don't get your point, @Doctor Shark, are you suggesting she's too intelligent or something to watch them?

 

Is this where you accuse me of attacking "unintelligent" people, or something?

 

No, my point is she is is this incredibly smart person who enjoys nothing more than to veg out watching the trashiest of trashy TV, because it helps her unwind, but i find it baffling why she (or anyone) watches such shite. They're shows full of the absolute worst people. 

[Vimster]

16 minutes ago, Mawdlin said:

I bloody love this programme and a couple of off-shoots: Make me a Dealer and Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

 

Admittedly I've had days where I've easily watched 5 or 6 Antiques Roadtrips in a row. They've made about 400 and I believe I've seen them all now, not to mention the Celeb version. I see Anita Manning out and about from time to time.

Oh yes my ex would go "seen this one" but end up watching it anyway. 

[Mawdlin]

4 minutes ago, Vimster said:

Oh yes my ex would go "seen this one" but end up watching it anyway. 

It's funny because with the celeb version I get a quarter of the way in and then realise I've seen it. Not because Anneka  Rice is on it but because they've just bought some trench art in Peebles.

[Monkeyboy]

5 hours ago, christaylor said:

Also like to watch the old British 70s shows they always have on during the day on ITV4, mainly Minder, The Sweeny and the Professionals, mainly to just look at how... grimy the 70s were. The haircuts, the clothes, the cars, it's all fascinatingly awful.

I have The Professionals on Blu-ray and it looks amazing, far better than the crappy versions on TV which have some weird green Vaseline smeared all over the lens effect. Probably takes away some of the grime. It looks like the seventies were only yesterday, it looks that good. It being filmed entirely on 16mm probably helped with the restoration.

 

There’s one episode on Blu-ray that I think only ever got aired once on TV. They never repeat it. And that’s because it’s so racist, it’s jaw dropping.

[jon_cybernet]

28 minutes ago, Gambit said:

Come Dine With Me.

 

I remember being off work sick for a few months so found myself pretty much every day watching a couple of episodes on Channel 4. The episode highlight being where one particular contestant thought she beat the system by giving everyone ridiculously unfair scores (2/10). The producers though told her to stop being such a twat and vote properly (I'm assuming this happened off camera because she changed all her scores at the end).

The best episode was the one where a particularly annoying contestant managed to turn the whole group against her. On her day to cook, she let people in, but was so drunk (Before she’d even cooked) she had to go upstairs and have a lie down, leaving her fellow contestants to cook for themselves. Judging by what was left on the kitchen counter, she was planning to cook them an Old El Paso tortilla kit meal. 
 

I think the episode was later pulled from rotation though, as she committed suicide a few years later. 

[Death's Head]

49 minutes ago, Monkeyboy said:

I have The Professionals on Blu-ray and it looks amazing, far better than the crappy versions on TV which have some weird green Vaseline smeared all over the lens effect. Probably takes away some of the grime. It looks like the seventies were only yesterday, it looks that good. It being filmed entirely on 16mm probably helped with the restoration.

 

There’s one episode on Blu-ray that I think only ever got aired once on TV. They never repeat it. And that’s because it’s so racist, it’s jaw dropping.

 

I would love a Sweeney Blu-ray set. Loads of it's filmed where I live and it'd be great to see old bits Hammersmith and Fulham in glorious 1080.